


praise satan

by wildlings (candybank)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: (avril vc) can i make it any more obvious.., M/M, Witch AU, human mingyu, witch wonwoo, yes im trash pls dont read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-07 01:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candybank/pseuds/wildlings
Summary: there’s something about being trapped inside a four-story house for four-hundred-and-fourteen days that makes wonwoo unbelievably horny—pun unintended.





	1. lupercalia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "... is that, like... witch valentines?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> witch wonwoo like are u fuckin kidding me..yes

there’s something about being trapped inside a four-story house for four-hundred-and-fourteen days that makes wonwoo unbelievably horny—pun unintended.

“does the devil actually have horns?” mingyu asks with a tilt of his head, talking as he chews on an apple slice. and when wonwoo finds himself getting half hard at the sight of a piece of fruit being churned into a paste inside his boyfriend’s mouth, he groans and collapses into a puddle, head falling onto mingyu’s lap—which, in hindsight, doesn’t seem like a great idea now that his mouth is two inches away from mingyu’s dick because now he wants to suck mingyu’s dick but he can’t because he literally just did that not two minutes ago and mingyu has long since become weary of letting wonwoo cast spells anywhere near his dick and wonwoo’s mind is running a million miles a minute again.

completely forgetting mingyu’s question, he sighs.

“babe?” comes mingyu’s concern accompanied by fingers stroking through wonwoo’s hair, caressing his cheek, pinching his earlobe. 

wonwoo closes his eyes and sighs again, lets the sensations and the sounds and the seconds wash over him like the indefinite number of days left on his suspension from school-slash-house arrest. he sits up and looks at mingyu—stares at him for seconds and hours before taking his face between his hands and kissing him. wonwoo kisses mingyu, gently at first, until he inches closer and closer, and pushes his tongue in deeper and deeper, and kisses mingyu harder and harder and hardr until their bodies are pressed loosely together and their breaths are bound loosely to one another and—

“babe—“ mingyu pulls away abruptly, almost convincingly half-hearted as he presses a palm against wonwoo’s chest. “let’s, uh—we just…”—and he never knows how to reject wonwoo, he doesn’t think it’s a skill he’ll ever really learn, especially not when wonwoo gets pouty and tear-eyed, but mingyu picks up what he can feel of his lips and powers through—“you know i think you’re super hot and everything, okay—especially since you became—i mean, _fully_ became… i mean, since after your witchy baptism ritual thing and you started wearing your hair up and wearing black and velvet and chain necklaces and everything—but… my lips are falling off,” he chuckles, “i love kissing you, really—i really reallyreally do—but we’ve been hooking up for literally twelve hours straight, woo. do you think maybe we could, uh, call it for today? take a break?”

and wonwoo, having long since stopped bothering trying to conjure the energy to hide his feelings, he looks affronted for one moment, then understanding the next.

he nods and sighs, and he sits back in his place on the couch. after minutes and hours of twisting and turning and trying to watch a movie, after seeing the date on mingyu’s phone screen from when mingyu fished it out of his pocket to send a text to his professor, wonwoo sits up with a start.

“it’s the thirteenth today?” he pipes up, and mingyu nods, almost weary.

“why…?” mingyu asks, cautious of the glint in wonwoo’s eye and the grin forming on his lips.

“so it’s the fourteenth tomorrow,” wonwoo bites his lip as if he’s excited about something, and mingyu, nods getting slower, he starts to feel nervous. the last time wonwoo looked at him like that, he ended up trapped inside of a painting in his parents’ dining room (a longer story than anyone would ever expect.)

“yeah…” mingyu answers, already feeling reckless just for responding.

“it’s lupercalia!” wonwoo’s grin bursts into a full-fledged smile, and mingyu doesn’t know what to do with the look on his boyfriend’s face nor the words that just came out of his mouth. not that it’s an uncommon occurrence—being a witch, wonwoo often says things that don’t make sense to mingyu; sometimes, mingyu even wonders if wonwoo’s speaking the same language. 

“valentines for you,” wonwoo clarifies unhelpfully. 

“is that… like, witch valentines…?” as he often finds himself trying to do, mingyu glues the bits and pieces of the conversation together.

“i guess you could say that,” wonwoo shrugs, excitedly clasping mingyu’s hands, “celebrate lupercalia with me,” he says, and as if finally reading the confusion on mingyu’s face, he clears his throat and explains,

“it’s this old festival that we celebrate every year. it started in rome—used to be this three-location ritual where warlocks would sacrifice goats and a dog and whip witches with goat bits to make them _fertile_ and men picked womens’ names out of a hat and procreated and started families and all. witch hunts were abound that time, so…” he trails off, barely noticing the confusion still scrawled all over mingyu’s face, “anyway, it’s evolved into something different over the centuries. now, it’s a three-part event that’s meant to distract us from… well, everything. 

it starts with a random pairing of two willing souls, followed by a run through the woods where we wash each other with blood and milk and lay through the night to bask in the magic of the moon goddess, then finally, the hunt, where one pretends to be hunted and the other pretends to be hunter, and we chase and play and play and play until… until we can’t feel our lips anymore.”

wonwoo punctuates his explanation with a hand on mingyu’s chest and a glittery look in his eye. mingyu doesn’t want to call him mischievous, doesn’t want to say that wonwoo tracing his lower lip with his thumb is in any way malicious, but wonwoo leans forward and litters mingyu’s neck with kisses when he knows fully well that mingyu can never stop him from doing that, and mingyu finds it exceedingly difficult to find another word for it. 

“so…” mingyu swallows, and wonwoo licks at the lump in his throat when it bobs up and down. “… you want us to fuck in a forest.” 

wonwoo pulls away to look at mingyu, and mingyu blinks pensively at nothing before looking up at him, tiny pout on his kiss-swollen lips.

“wonu, you know i hate bugs.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a massive notes app for shit i wna write into this au and i will go thru it i WILL..yes..i did jst watch allof sabrina s2 in 3hrs..so cringe but so good ugh..this is loosely based off sabrina yes!!!im trash!!yes!!,!its5 am!,!!,!hhh<33hope u liked it MWAH


	2. back to school special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wonwoo goes back to school—one way and another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter jun and minghao heheh (tw smut?kind of? not explicit..also tw emotional abuse?????????not really but kindof ww does sth kindof twsted n makes mingyu cry dont do this at home)

it’s a forty minute drive through foggy woods with too-tall trees from school to the jeon residence at the edge of the cliff outside town, but mingyu’s rickety four-wheel drive is parked in front of the pointy white-wood house four times a week without fail. and wonwoo, his sweet, loving, warlock boyfriend wonwoo, he’s always just sitting on the stairs or perched on the roof or leaning by the fence, always waiting, always breaking into a smile at the sight of mingyu and running up to mingyu to give him a hug and pulling mingyu into his bedroom and pushing mingyu onto his bed and climbing mingyu’s body like jack once did a beanstalk after playing into a witch’s lame prank.

and mingyu, he’s always so captivated by wonwoo that he forgets himself. forgets that his body is tired from school, and that his lips still feel like mashed potatoes from being kissed all weekend, and that he rehearsed his speech in the car the entire drive here (“hey, woo. hey wonwoo. wonu, babe. let’s not kiss today, or do anything related to kissing. okay, fine—let’s not have sex. can we do that? let’s just sit on the couch all day, huh? how about we take a nap? or sleep until tomorrow? or read a book? watch the clouds? literally anything but anything that involves your bed, your your mouth or weird crystals up my ass, wonwoo, please—i mean, i love your mouth! i love the crystals! i love everything! i just think i’m having trouble chewing because i can’t feel my lips, literally. and i might have to see my chiropractor this week.”) and he loves wonwoo, but he’d really rather watch paint dry than participate in a ten-hour makeout session or a two-person witch orgy or lupercalia or the one-hundred-and-one other excuses wonwoo seems to have to sleep with him.

“hey,” he presses his hand against wonwoo’s chest, “woo,” shakily, he tries to remember what he’d said to himself in the car. “babe, how ‘bout we, um—“ but wonwoo gets that look in his eye, something glittery and hopeful and adorable, and mingyu can’t bring himself to remember what he meant to say.

instead, he racks his brain for something wonwoo might like to do besides his boyfriend that he hasn’t seen in thirty-six house. “spells,” mingyu blurts out, words going straight from brain-to-mouth. “you’re still… practicing your spells, right? i could help you with—i don’t know, i could watch you, or…”

and mingyu feels nervous for all of a moment, for the time he can’t read the look on wonwoo’s face, until wonwoo peels himself off of mingyu with a laugh. he runs his fingers through his hair and licks the taste of mingyu off of his lips.

“you really ‘wanna get out of my bed that bad, huh…” wonwoo says, and mingyu almost feels sorry for trying to save his body from becoming a total wreck.

“well…” mingyu bites his lip, sighs, shifts in bed so that he’s sitting. “i love you, but—“ mingyu looks around as if anyone else lives in wonwoo’s prison, lowers his voice so only the both of them can hear, “to be honest, my lower back’s seriously starting to hurt. like, i think i finally know why they call it ‘blowing your back out.’ … i’m probably ‘gonna see my chiropractor.”

wonwoo rolls his eyes, laughing. he takes mingyu’s hands, and with one short chant, he takes him to the roof. mingyu yelling, almost slipping on a tile and sliding down the roof—wonwoo laughing, catching him before he falls, and helping him sit on the thin skeleton of his home.

“doctors are a hack, gyu,” wonwoo says, “i thought i already told you this.”

fingers shaking, breeze in his hair, trying to stay completely still and not look down, mingyu buries his nails into the wood, “… you’re a bio major…” he says once he finds his footing, stilling his eyes on the miles and miles of trees in front of them.

“only ironically,” wonwoo replies, eyes on the clouds flying past them.

and mingyu, he wants to move a little closer, but he’s terrified of moving, so instead he tries to still his heart. “i miss you at school,” he says, braving gravity to lean forward and press a small kiss to the nape of wonwoo’s neck.

there’s a silence that passes, wonwoo putting his hand over mingyu’s, staring at the miles and miles of the world before them, and he realizes that he has never truly missed the world before now.

until now, he never truly understood how being locked within the acres of his family’s property by spells he can’t break was a punishment.

“i have an idea,” he cracks the silence. mingyu doesn’t have to look at him to see the grin on his mouth, the trouble brewing. and he doesn’t have much time to wonder about it, either, because the next time he opens his eyes, he finds himself in an old office.

worn leather chairs and centuries-old bookshelves with centuries-old books, and clutter on the desk. paper and ink and dusty parchment stuck to the walls, littered all over the floor, and wonwoo wades through the antique mess like it’s nothing. 

he climbs a stool and reaches for a book too big and too old. mingyu puts his hand behind wonwoo’s back, if only to catch him if the book falls on his head and knocks him out. he lets out a sigh of relief when it doesn’t, still wary of it when wonwoo sets the book down on the table with a thud, cloud of dust fluttering around them like glitter in the sun. it seems to take a great deal of effort to open the book, to flip the gray pages, even to read the writing scribbled across the paper; a language mingyu doesn’t understand, characters he doesn’t recognize, and it looks hand-written so he reaches out a hand to touch it. 

wonwoo smacks his wrist. “what the heaven are you doing?!”

“ _what_?”

“if anyone besides a witch touches this book, they’ll burst into a million pieces of dust,” wonwoo says, and mingyu’s heart races with how horrified he is. shoving his hands into his pockets, not wanting to touch anything else in the room, he takes two steps away from the table.

“okay, here it is,” wonwoo chimes after another minute of perusing his homicidal book. he turns to mingyu, mischievous twinkle in his eye, “let me sit in your head,” he says. 

and mingyu, confused to the very marrow of his bones, he narrows his eyes at wonwoo, as if he’s trying to read his lips to hear him better, as if he’s trying to see, again and again, whether or not they’re still speaking the same language. “you…”

wonwoo grabs mingyu’s arm and seats him on a couch. “there’s this spell,” he starts, and mingyu stifles a sigh, “it’ll let me… see the world through your eyes. it’ll be like, you’re the driver and i’m the passenger. just for a day.”

and mingyu, though undeniably curious and fascinated by wonwoo’s world, he still feels weary and cautious of spells and potions—especially ones that involve ancient-looking books and so much excitement.

“okay,” he breathes. 

“i’ll get the knife,” wonwoo smiles giddily, rushing out of the room.

 

***

 

with one bandaged hand and one illegally smuggled boyfriend sitting behind his windshield eyes, mingyu walks into class. the spell had required him to slice open the palm of his hand so he could bleed into a plastic cup, and it had given him cotton mouth that wonwoo said would go away but never did, but wonwoo sounds so happy when he says,

“oh my god. i can’t believe it worked. i’m actually outside again—is that mingming? he’s gained weight, huh…”

that mingyu can’t bring himself to complain.

he hears wonwoo’s voice in the air, and he has to stop himself from talking back to nothing and looking crazy, and it’s overwhelmingly _weird_ , but wonwoo sounds so happy as he blabbers in mingyu’s ear about everything, and mingyu’s more than thankful that he has something to keep him awake through another cat anatomy lecture, so he doesn’t complain.

“wonu?” mingyu whispers into nothing once he’s alone. halfway through class, wonwoo had stopped talking, and mingyu had suddenly blurted out his name and earned himself some stares. distracted with worry, he’d waited until the end of the class to check on him.

“wonwoo?” he calls again, just a little louder, but no one answers, and he spends the long drive to wonwoo’s house all alone, too.

 

***

 

wonwoo asks him to pick up a carton of milk at the store, which mingyu thinks is weird because wonwoo always has gallons and gallons of milk stored in the basement for his pet cat that drinks a questionable amount of milk, but he would literally jump off of the cliff in wonwoo’s backyard if he asked him to, so he makes a quick stop at the nearest convenience store a handful of kilometers away.

“oh, shit—sorry—“ comes the voice of the boy that had bumped into mingyu so hard that he made him drop the cartons of milk in his hands. they’d exploded on impact and made a mess on the floor. 

and mingyu, feeling a little panicky, eyes flickering from the floor to the girl behind the counter, he takes off his jacket to mop up the mess before she looks up from her phone. “it’s okay,” he tells the stranger, barely bothering to look up until he sees him crouched on the floor in front of him.

“jun?” the name tumbles out of his mouth, syllable a little shaky. mingyu almost falls onto his ass because he has never seen junhui this up close. they share two classes and they’ve said hello and done the occasional group project, but mingyu has never been _so_ _close_ to him; he thinks it feels a little like staring directly into the sun.

his classmate smiles, eyebrows knitted into worry, “sorry about that, gyu. i wasn’t looking in front of me. should i ask the girl at the counter for the mop?”

“no, it’s okay. it’s, uh—“ mingyu lifts his milk-soaked jacket from the clean floor, “a lot of it went under the shelf anyway, i think.”

“oh, no, your jacket,” jun frowns. “here,” he takes off his coat and lays it on the floor. “wrap it in this,” he instructs, and mingyu finds his limbs moving on their own, doing as he’s told.

jun wraps mingyu’s wet jacket with his dry one, and, completely, totally inconspicuous, they walk out of the store together.

“thanks for that. really,” mingyu laughs once they’re outside, “here, i’ll take that,” he says, reaching for the coats, “i’ll wash it and give it back to you.”

jun nods, their fingers brushing when he hands over the clothes, and it makes mingyu remember himself. he looks at the orange sky and thinks that it should have turned blue by now, at the fixed 24-hour sign behind the store window that he knows mister kim is far too cheap to get fixed; he looks at the empty roads that are never empty, at the girl behind the counter still typing away at her phone, fingers almost a metronome.

he looks back up at jun.

“you okay, mingyu? where are you parked anyway?” jun asks.

“out back. i—hey, what’re you doing out here, jun? don’t you live halfway across town?”

jun waves his hand dismissively, “my dad asked me to get something from his mechanic. i thought i’d get a drink before going home.”

mingyu looks across the road, and sure enough, a mechanic’s shop sits on the side of the street.

“come on, i’m parked in the back too,” jun says before mingyu can think another thought, touching his arm gently as if he’s herding him away from the street.

and mingyu, thinking maybe he’s just feeling a little out of it for having cottonmouth for three straight days, he smiles and nods and walks beside his classmate. talking about this and nothing and that and everything, thinking jun is handsome as if he can’t think anything else.

“you’re really handsome,” he blurts out, looking at jun from the other side of his truck.

and jun, he doesn’t seem at all surprised or far too fazed about it. he replies with a charming smile that makes mingyu want to crawl out of his skin, and when jun starts walking towards him, mingyu thinks that he just might do exactly that.

“do you want to kiss me?” jun asks, suddenly in front of him, half a step too close.

and mingyu, heart in his throat, blinking hard so he won’t cry, he swallows and opens his mouth to say something. to say no, no i don’t, i don’t think so, no, i have a boyfriend, wonwoo, he’s great, you know, jeon wonwoo from bio last sem, he’s taking a break from school this year for personal reasons, but i love him, and he’s my boyfriend, and i’m actually on my way to see him right now, so i should go, and not kiss you, because i don’t want to, i think. “yes,” comes out of his mouth, and when jun takes it too quickly and kisses him right then, he thinks that maybe that was exactly what he meant to say. 

jun’s mouth is hot and wet and tastes familiar, and he presses mingyu up against his car and he slips his fingers into the loops of mingyu’s belt buckles. and it’s far too easy to be pushed into the backseat and get fucked in the backseat, and mingyu doesn’t know how anything can feel so good, but it does.

his legs are sore and his scalp tingles from hair being grabbed too hard, and he feels entirely too dirty when he blinks his eyes open and finds jun pulling his clothes back on.

it’s over as quickly as it started, and mingyu forces his arms awake so he can get his jeans back on too. 

“you’re hot,” jun tells him with a grin before kissing him again and stepping out.

“see you in class,” jun calls as he gets into his car and drives away, and mingyu’s mind is still reeling when he slips into the driver’s seat.

he stares at the wheel for minutes and hours, the seconds barely settling before he starts the car and speeds down the road to wonwoo.

 

***

 

the drive to wonwoo’s house passes far too quickly. mingyu thinks it’s because he drove too fast, because he was trying to burn his guilt like fuel. and wonwoo is not on the porch waiting like he usually is, and it makes mingyu panic. he knows, mingyu thinks to himself though he knows it’s almost entirely impossible, still he thinks: heknowsheknowsheknowsheknows.

getting out of the car and running to wonwoo’s doorstep, he nearly trips. and when he arrives at the front porch, he stares at nothing for entirely too long. by the time mingyu rings the doorbell, fresh tears are falling down his face.

wonwoo opens the door, smile vanishing when he sees mingyu crying. “baby?” he asks, concerned, herding mingyu inside with a gentle hand on his arm, “what’s wrong?"

if he wasn't so taken by his sadness, mingyu would have noticed how tired wonwoo looked, or the blood stains around his nostrils. but with his vision completely impeded by tears, mingyu only walks to where wonwoo guides him to. not noticing the floor, the stairs, the doors and the vial pressed underneath his eye. by the time wonwoo seats him on a couch, he’s sobbing and crying with snot dripping down to his mouth. wonwoo is quick to find a box of tissues and wipe his face clean.

“baby, stop crying,” wonwoo says, eyebrows knitted into worry. “if you didn't get the milk, it's fine," wonwoo chuckles, trying to make mingyu smile and miserably failing. "tell me what’s wrong,” he says, planting a soft kiss on mingyu’s cheek.

“no, don’t kiss me, i—“ mingyu pushes lamely at the air, his arms’ intentions unclear. he sobs and sobs, and he waits until he can stop, but it doesn’t seem like he can, so he talks though the tears, “i s—i did someone, wonwoo,” mingyu cries, “someone that wasn’t you. i’m sorryi’m—“ 

and mingyu, he thinks wonwoo looks hurt, but he can’t be sure because he’s sobbing into his hands again. he feels a hand on his back, a shoulder to lean on, words whispered into his ear but he can’t hear anything over his own heartbeat.

“was it him?” wonwoo asks, and mingyu looks up to see his classmate sitting in front of him.

nearly falling to the floor, his entire body trembling, mingyu looks around to find wonwoo. it takes him seconds and minutes before realizing that wonwoo is still sitting right in front of him. 

“y-yeah…” mingyu answers shakily, the nervousness leaving his body.

"the guy eyefucking you in anatomy," when jun opens his mouth, wonwoo's voice comes out, and mingyu narrows his eyes the way he does when he’s trying to understand what wonwoo’s saying,

“did you like it?”

he doesn’t notice that the tears have stopped, that the shaking has stopped, and that he has been staring at the boy in front of him for minutes. still, mingyu doesn't know what to say or what to think, or what's happening at all, but “yes,” comes out of his mouth, and wonwoo takes it too quickly and kisses him.

 

***

 

“babe?” mingyu calls when he hears the front door close, getting up to greet wonwoo downstairs, “how was your first day back at school? did y—

oh. hello. … can i help you?” mingyu stops in his tracks at the sight of a boy he doesn’t recognize. as with anything that happens in the jeon household, it makes him feel a little nervous.

“this is minghao,” says the boy, and mingyu’s survival instincts have never been duller as when he stayed right where he was as the stranger approached him. and this stranger, strangely familiar, he touches mingyu’s cheek; his lips curling into a grin, “he’s in my bubbling class. handsome, right?”

and when he speaks again, he sounds entirely like wonwoo, “i thought you’d like him.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so rushed and sobad pls dont hex me(((yes its wonwoo as junhao he used glamour(spell that changes appearance) headcanon that they had a whole converstion abt it after the junhui incident where they concluded theyr jst into mingyu doin other people but not actual other people..keepin thing s spicy..)))


	3. the devil, the vampire, the witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wen junhui.

wen junhui, as it turns out, isn’t the horny sex-starved demon that mingyu’s chilling adventures in the bedroom with his boyfriend, warlock jeon wonwoo of the church of night, specializing in charms and necromancy at the academy of unseen arts, have led him to believe. wen junhui doesn’t live to shove charmed sex crystals up mingyu’s ass in unconventional, uncomfortable places in one-hundred-and-one-million crazy-scary positions. he doesn’t say things like “you’re hot”, “get on your knees”, “you like that, don’t you?” and “what would wonwoo say if he saw you like this?” with his fingers tight around mingyu’s neck and his thumb shoved into mingyu’s skin as if one swipe could tear his jugular open.

wen junhui is a quiet boy with a nice smile and kind eyes and good test scores, and he says perfectly normal things like “hey, what’s up?”, “i think we can finish this experiment in one night”, and “do you mind if we do it at your place, though? my dorm’s got a leak and maintenance said they’re fixing it tonight so it might be distracting.” and mingyu, he nods and says okay and he says, sure, sure that’s great, here, give me your number, i’ll text you.

 

***

 

wonwoo once said that wen junhui is as handsome as the devil (“i’ve literally seen the devil, gyu. you know what, junhui might be hotter than him.”) and twice as smart, and when he arrives with an armful of books that aren’t in their class’ assigned reading list, saying i’ve been using these to study, they’re really helpful, i thought we could use some references, mingyu fully realizes wonwoo’s words for the fact that they are.

and sure, mingyu has seen junhui in far more incriminating lighting than this; with much less proximity between the two of them, if any at all, but they’ve been sitting on the couch for an hour, barely a feet apart, and junhui hasn’t tried to jump mingyu’s bones at all. the quiet and the innocence are as loud as each other, and the sound of it helps mingyu keep things in perspective. the soundless reading of books and the comfortable silence of mutual trying-to-study helps him separate wen junhui, his human classmate, from jun, his warlock boyfriend in a witchy spell-thing called glamour (“it just changes how i look, gyu. it’s still me—all the excitement and guilt of cheating without the consequences.”)

and though this distinction makes human-classmate wen junhui seem _boring_ , with his punctuality and his niceness and his polite respectful smiles, it makes dealing with him easier, too.

“mingyu?”

“…”

“hey,” junhui’s laugh brings mingyu back to his book. it’s only when his eyes refocus on the picture of test tubes printed on the page in front of him does he realize that he’d read an entire chapter and didn’t understand a single word of it.

10:02 PM reads the clock.

“let’s take a break,” junhui says smartly, closing his book and setting it down on the table, “do you mind if i take your couch for five minutes? i really need a nap.”

“oh, yeah, yeah, sure,” mingyu nods as he curls up on the floor, a sudden sleepiness claiming him. as he closes his eyes, he hears junhui’s voice in the distance, but he’s far too deep into sleep to really hear him.

 

***

 

7:03 AM  
3 new messages  
**Jun (anatomy)**

finished the experiment. sorry i had to be somewhere  
left the activity sheet on the table  
see u in class

 

11:12 PM  
2 new messages  
**Wonwoo ❤️** 🎃

imy, are you gonna be done tonight?  
are you dropping by?

 

***

 

“hey, i have a q—“

“gyu, i have something t—“

mingyu stops when wonwoo stops, eyes caught, as if the world has stopped. he laughs, kisses wonwoo hello before walking in. the drive is always long enough; too much time to think, too much bottlenecking of words and questions and stories.

“what were you saying?” mingyu asks.

“no, you first,” wonwoo answers, fitting his fingers in the space between mingyu’s, keeping them laced together even as they land on the couch.

“okay,” mingyu breathes, the surface of his face already painted in confusion.

“i don’t— i’m not sure how…” when he speaks, it’s as if the words are hiding, hard to find, but he tries and tries to remember. “i’m not sure if this is a witchy thing… but i don’t know, i just think it’s weird and it doesn’t make sense to me so. 

okay, so you know how me and real-jun had that assignment to work on and he stayed at my house last night.” 

“yeah.”

“we took a study break around ten. he said he was sleepy so he napped on the couch, and i didn’t think i was sleepy, but then suddenly i felt _so_ tired, so i napped on the floor. then, i woke up like… … it felt like just five minutes later. and i remember it was still dark, like night-time dark. but then, he wasn’t there anymore… … and i checked my phone and saw he sent me messages saying he’d finished the experiment and everything and that he had to be somewhere.”

wonwoo nods, as if listening intently.

and mingyu, he pulls up text messages from Jun (anatomy). “look, it says seven a.m.,” he points to the time stamps on the messages, “and i remember the clocks and my watch said so too, but i know it _wasn’t_ seven a.m. _and then_ , like five minutes _later_ , i get new texts from you. and they say eleven p.m.” mingyu puts his phone down, his confusion revitalized and renewed. “i just don’t… what time did you text me? you can see it says seven a.m. right there, right?” 

“so, i’m right…” wonwoo thumbs the protection spell-riddled ring he'd given mingyu. a little piece of jewelry that had taken him nearly a month to forge, to charm, to seal; intended to keep mingyu safe from the danger of the unknown, designed to make spells and charms and potions fail; spells like the illusion spell that wonwoo suspects junhui had cast.

“what?”

“i saw junhui at the academy.”

 

***

 

“i thought the light was playing tricks on me.”

black coat to his feet and black clothes to his skin, face pale and hair gray, junhui laughs. he looks almost out of place in the green and brown of the deep woods, in the yellow shining of the sun through the spaces between the leaves, yet nothing about this is wrong. nothing amiss, nothing awry. he looks like he belongs here, like he owns everything around him down to the very soil that the roots of the trees cling to.

wen junhui, grin on his lips and eyes dark the way only time can make something gray, he looks at wonwoo like he could tear him apart with one flick of his wrist.

and wonwoo feels intoxicated with the fear of him.

“you’re a warlock,” junhui says, walking closer, “it should be you playing tricks on the light.”

wonwoo narrows his eyes so he won’t flinch, won’t back away, won’t move a limb when junhui traces the cut of wonwoo’s jaw with the back of his hand.

“i like him,” junhui says, gaze fluttering from wonwoo’s lips to his eyes to his throat, as if he wants to rip out the strings that hold his body together, as if he wants to kiss him or devour him whole. “mingyu,” junhui clarifies, small smile pulling at his teeth, revealing almost-vampire sharp canines. 

and mingyu has heard of the church of blood-born—colloquially: the vampire church, the church of feasts—a coven of witches created centuries ago to serve and protect a coven of vampires; witches who eventually realized they were more powerful than their masters, who broke free from slavery and took the vampires’ powers for themselves by eating them. skin-to-bone, flesh-and-blood. and so, in devouring them, they absorbed them, and gained vampire-like qualities of their own. pale skin, sharp teeth, an aversion to sunlight and a lust for blood and an extreme dislike of garlic.

or so the textbooks and the stories say.

“i thought the vampire church was an urban legend,” wonwoo says, unable to take his eyes away from the tips of junhui’s teeth.

“oh, we’re very much real,” junhui grins, “all over the world, actually. people always think anne rice is a vampire. they never once stop to think that she might be a witch.”

“… is she?”

“no. just a human with a wild imagination,” junhui says, “who’s friends with one of our priests.

well, i should go now. it’s nice to finally meet you, wonwoo. visit me sometime. bring mingyu. we’re having a feast on Saturday, if you’d like to come. and if you don't mind _sharing_.”

“i’m not giving you mingyu for one of your _feasts_. everyone knows your coven are cannibals.”

“he’ll be a guest, not the meal,” junhui laughs, charming and airy. “and the generalization is offensive, really. eating is optional in almost all of our celebrations.

minghao will be there. drip blood from an open wound into a glass of saltwater three times to rsvp.”

as quickly as he’d arrived, junhui disappears, as if riding a gust of wind, as if the speed of light.

 

***

“i was thinking we could m—“ junhui stops in the middle of his sentence, as if a pedestrian stuck in the middle of the street, words speeding by like rush-hour cars, everything crashing into each other, forming a lump in his throat that gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until he has to vomit a full-sized bullfrog into his hands. 

slimy green skin and brown spots and all.

minghao stares at it for only a second before bursting into laughter, falling onto his back and doubling over 

“that’s so funny,” minghao breathes in between chuckles, clutching his stomach and giggling.

junhui narrows his eyes at the frog in his hands that was, only moments ago, in his throat. the taste of it lingers in the back of his mouth, and he throws the animal at minghao to make him stop laughing.

but minghao catches the frog and holds it and pets it, and he says aw, aw, he’s adorable, junnie. minghao says, who did this to you? as if he wants to thank them, and junhui can hear wonwoo laughing through the cracks between the tree barks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thisis so baddsjdsdjsjd HOPE u enjoyed tho heheh its real fun to write [hey lets talk witch wonwoo](https://twitter.com/zhengtingslut)


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